Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1887-12-10
LOCAL HAPPENINGS.

Ihe6i'frdi The appearance in
RaveuScraft's Opera House next We'd
nesday evening, Dee. H. 1857, Of Miss
Clara Louise Kellogg will have been
notable event i'll the operate history
Of Frostburg. A full house appears
er, Worldwide, draws the masses
everywhere TO her concerts. In this
connection it is said:
Miss Kellogg was born a child Of song. No
singer ever came into our prosaic world better
equipped by nature for musical mission.
Within a strong vital body was enclosed the
exquisite soul Of musician and poet, and
the intellecual capacity to achieve. Born of
New England parents while they were on a
visit to the South, fate seemed to indicate that
both extremes of the country should claim
her, and before she had reached her teens
she eyinced the Characteristic quckness of
perception and the warm depth of feeling
that mark the natives of both extremes
These facts are important, now that We
can in some degree measure the work that
Miss Kellogg has done. They show that she
was born singer, and that she was peculiar
ly American.
One fact explains her genius the other ex-
plains her career.
We have therefore, to regard her, first as
musician who has conferred honor on her
sex and her art, and Us an American who has
worked assiduously and successfully to inn
prove and elevate the tone of public taste
everywhere.
Miss Kellogg came to her work divinely
attuned. Her natural advantages were many
and large. She possessed that nature which
could not only carol but could conquer. She
was gifted with musical apprehension which
even in infancy was looked upon as some
thing marvellous. Her ear was not merely
superior to many others in its delicacy, it was
absolutely unlike any other in its uncrring
fidelity to a positive standard of purity and
pitch. 1t could designate and analyze all the
subdivisions of the gamut before the child
had learned the names of the notes. She
seemed indeed to have been born with a pos
tive and not a relative sense of tone, and the
fortunate advantage of the purest associations
and the best training during childhood de-
velopei and strengthened it,
This is well worth mentioning because il is
the basis of that subsequent purity and ac-
curacy Of execution that have been the ad,
miration of masters and composers in two
hemisphercS, and it explains the somewhat
remarkable assertion made by one of the
best musicians in America, to the effect that
Miss Kellogg was the only vocalist in the
country who never, under any circumstances,
sang out of tune
To this gift of am ear so eXquisitely sens-
tive that it could detect the faintest departure
from the pitch, was added a vocal function
of very remarkable quality and power
1t is said that Miss Kellogg sang before she
could talk; of this we know nothing; but it is
! very certain that when, with the growth of
intelligence, she began to see intelligibly, it
was with a voice unlike any other that we
have heard in its delicious tjMbrc its remark
able compass, its even quality and its gener-
Gus winning power. As was remarked by
one Of our poets: There was in it the scin
tillant CLEANS Of the northern boreais and
the quiyering warmth Of southern mid
night"
The programme for the evening
will be besides an excellent concert
programme the entire fourth act of
Verdi's melodious opera, al Trova-
tore,' better known in English as the
Trouhadour." The performance in
Frostburg will be entirely different
from the one in Cumberland. We
/ publish the programme, which is a
superb one, composed of popular
music, which any body having music
al ear can understand.
Miss Clara Louise Kellogg always